


Limbo

by legendspeaker



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, but don't quite realize it, in which these two are very gay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-25 23:01:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18711445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/legendspeaker/pseuds/legendspeaker
Summary: A week following Frisk's mysterious disappearance, their place is filled by a stranger to Geno, but his presence isn't entirely foreboding, and is quite welcome rather.





	Limbo

Geno was pressed against the soft green blades that separated the save screen from the rest of the void. Empty white noise filled his head, only interrupted when his clothing shuffled uncomfortably loud when he adjusted his position on the mound. The silence was always the same, though he lived in a constant state of agony with the lack of noise and quite frankly anything to do. All he had was free time and nothing to do with it. 

His scar was exceptionally painful today, explaining his lack of movement from the green mass. Though his features were usually nonchalant and bored, today it was contorted with pain. It wasn’t often that he was in severe pain in the void, but it happened on the rare occasion and there wasn’t much to do about it. 

Pressing a firm hand against his chest, Geno gripped his shirt carefully and let out a sigh. There was no point griping about it, he always found these rare moments inevitable, but bound to happen again and again until he could manage to end his life.

But that was never an option for him.

And so he suffered silently, rolling over in the grass to sit up, criss-cross, and look up at the endless black. He thought that, perhaps one day, he could leave and actually something to do with all these minutes he spent wasting away. Being unable to leave his permanent “home,” however, prevented him from doing anything with this leftover time from his state of half-death, half-life.

The suffocating feelings of bleeding eternally were annoying at this point, letting out a grumble as he close his one good socket, doing his absolute to relax into something of a short nap to distract him from the pains, which were already growing subtle.

Granted, the suffocating feeling never ceased, but the feeling was no longer pain but an intense wave of negative emotions: exhaustion, fear, regret. Flashes of past genocides, several hundred instances, brought him to a waking state. He was unsure of how long he had actually slept, if at all.

Geno sat up in the attempt to shake the “dream” and cast his magic out to light his eyelight. Glancing around, expecting Frisk, he saw nothing but darkness, and somewhat relieved no one was there, began to relax again, and did his best to think of happier, lighter thoughts to ease his mood.

“But you don’t have any.”

Surprised, Geno flinched and his glitches increased in intensity. That wasn’t Frisk…? With a confused glance, he checked around him again. It was still void. Was it him, of all people?

“Who’s there?” Geno growled, standing up now and gripping his sleeve. What he hadn’t expected next was to be pulled backwards into a sludge-like mess, held tightly by the form behind him.

“No one special, I assure you. I’ve just been peeking in every now and again. You’re quite… sad, aren’t you?” The stranger remarked, and the red-scarfed glitch let out a hiss as he wiggled free, spinning around and fixing his scarf so it wasn’t choking him.

Geno was right referring to the form as a sludge creature; he was black, explaining why he wouldn’t have expected to see him, but the bright cyan eye seemed to reflect his hard white one. The stranger picked up on this immediately.

“See, we’re the same, creatures abandoned by our own universe and forced to live in such a wretched state,” the monster came closer, and Geno was too scared to move, even if his mind was screaming for him to back away. But to where? It always loops back here, he argued to himself, glaring at the figure before him.

“You have no idea what I’ve been through,” he countered, only for the goopy monster to take another step towards him. 

“Of course I know, haven’t I told you I’ve been keeping an eye on you?” Geno nearly punched himself for forgetting that fact, finally managing to pull away and take a step backwards, but almost immediately stumbled and slammed onto the “floor” of the void. 

“Just leave me alone,” he replied at last, in pain as the figure towered over him. “I have enough problems as it is, though if you’re granting me death I will gladly take it.”

The figure sneered, then laughed, and a strange appendage gripped him from behind to lift him up to full height. Geno found it almost comical that he had a few inches on the mass before him, but mentioned nothing of it.

“You may know me as Nightmare, not Death. Do not mistake me for that suffering fool. Know my name well, I will be back tomorrow,” Nightmare abruptly dropped him, and in the split second in which Geno took to rub his pelvic bone, the other was gone, just as quickly as he came.

A low grumble escaped the glitch. A day could be any amount of time, since it didn’t work the same here in the void; he never quite figured out the ratio of time here to time in the overworld, it wasn’t as if he could spend more than a few hours out there without dusting, only to end up back in the save screen. 

Granted, the stranger had somehow distracted his body from the pain in his chest, and within a few moments decided to curl up near the mound of grass and attempt, again, at a nap.

 

 

Geno awoke with a start at the appendage prodding at his cheek, which slithered back to its owner as he attempted to snatch it away. He sat up and brushed his cheek with his sleeve, confused when, as he examined his white jacket, it was stained with a black substance.

Oh, right.

“Nightmare.” Geno sounded as tired as he felt, sluggish to stand and greet his guest. His limbs were heavy, and he barely had enough energy to shove his hands into his pockets, and he praised whatever higher being that Nightmare hadn’t attempted to offer his hand.

In his slow state of mind, his focus shifted to the ever-moving appendages behind Nightmare, swaying as he spoke, but the words didn’t register to Geno, something about emotions or other that he couldn’t much care about. 

What about emotions? All he felt was sadness, to put it simply. Depression was his very being, and he knew better than anyone that he couldn’t die, this plane trapped him here until, maybe one day, his universe was completely erased. Or perhaps the multiverse was so cruel as to not allow him the solace of death itself, but the thought was drowned out by his focus on the long, thick tentacles that squirmed behind Nightmare.

It was rather amusing to watch them interact with one another while his guest spoke, prodding and curling around anything they could touch, even themselves. They had a mind of their own, which Geno found interesting.

Without even realizing it himself, he approached Nightmare, in the middle of a heated spiel, which died off abruptly as Geno pet one of the tentacles, which wrapped around his hand akin to a snake and squeezed just the same. Amused, he pet another, which poked back him before patting back, then once more. 

“What are you-”

“Sh,” Geno interrupted Nightmare, who blinked in confusion. Was he just told to…? The tentacles retreated back at the goop-covered skeletons will, and Geno frowned, though realized a moment later how childish he had appeared to be, and backed off.

“Were you even listening to me?” Nightmare hissed, and it became apparent to Geno that he was extremely flustered. He was sure that, if the other wasn’t covered in the black tar substance, he might have even been blushing.

Geno shook his head, and a groan escaped the goop-covered monster.

Before he could space out again from another boring and unengaging topic, Nightmare grabbed Geno’s hand in his own and watched the frenzy of glitches make themselves known from the sudden abundance of emotion. Most notably confusion, but also a sort of longing in the hold, even if Geno didn’t grip back - fear. Fear of being left alone? 

That was one thing that Nightmare had noted when he entered this specific void: there was no one else except Geno, which was strange because he meant to find the Frisk that resided here in order to get to the glitch himself, but they were nowhere to be found. Perhaps Core had gotten wind of his plan and saved Frisk, but being unable to do the same for Geno had to leave him. 

That was the theory, anyways. Nightmare gripped the hand for a minute longer, warming Geno’s hand with his own though no doubt leaving the sloppy black substance behind as well. The glitching had subsided and, Nightmare realized that the white-and-red clad skeleton was flushed with embarrassment. He promptly released, the feeling of longing growing substantially in the lonesome skeleton.

“Don’t be sad,” Nightmare cooed, and Geno jolted at the realization that… that they had just held hands, if only for a few moments. The guest pulled him into a careful hug, which Geno practically melted into, shaking as though this would be the last embrace he would ever receive. He choked, but held back a sob at the wave of emotion rolling onto him, feeling a tendril wrap around his arm as if to reassure him.

And Nightmare’s plan was in motion.


End file.
